Channing Benson

Channing Benson is a senior technical consultant at Hewlett-Packard. He works with HP's software partners in the areas of Java performance, J2EE architectures, and Itanium migration. A 20-year industry veteran, his previous areas of expertise include Lisp and X11/Motif. His recreational interests are music, snowboarding, backcountry skiing, and Ultimate Frisbee.

Criticizing something as wildly successful as the World Wide Web seems a bit
radical and potentially unpopular. There is no doubt that Tim Berners-Lee's
elegantly simple invention enabled an unprecedented revolution in the way
computers are used and by whom.
The amount of information currently accessible to anyone with an Internet
connection is truly mind-boggling, and I do not think it is an exaggeration
to say that the Web is the most revolutionary invention since the automobile
in terms of the effect that it has had on how we live our lives.
So what brings me to gore this sacred cow? How can I be negative about
something that everyone acknowledges as a technological marvel?
To be honest, most Web applications are distinctly user-unfriendly. The Web's
undisputed power to access and present information has been mistaken for a
universal entry point to computing and i... (more)